Easy Money, Part 4
Morg grabbed his satchel and glanced at the change of clothes lying on the floor, deciding neither they nor the toothbrush in the bathroom were worth the time it would take to pick them up. "You ready?" he asked Odrida, his eyes on the single entrance to their room, his hand wrapped around the pistol in his jacket pocket.
"Yup," she said, shouldering her own bag.
Morg motioned Odrida against the wall and whacked the button next to the door. Old, badly-maintained machinery began grinding it open.
He crouched low and peeked into the hallway before the door was done opening. Left, nothing. Right, two spacers waiting to get into their own room.
No threats.
He nodded once to Odrida and darted into the hall. With the pistol in his pocket, his SmartGoggles™ couldn't use the optics mounted below the barrel to let him know precisely where the bullet would wind up if he pulled the trigger, but he'd decided the attention he'd draw by waving around a slugthrower wasn't worth the extra second it would take him to draw the weapon.
Besides, at close range, he wouldn't need to draw it.
Odrida followed him into the hall. But they hadn't gone two steps before she said "Shit!" and darted back to their room, halting the door before it finished closing.
"What?" he asked, backing up and looking around; what had Odrida seen?
"Forgot Izzy's gear!" she shouted from inside the room.
"Anything he can't replace?"
After about ten seconds, she was back out with Izzy's hand-woven knapsack across her back. "I'm pretty sure his Bible's in here."
Morg set off down the hall at a fast walk, wary of all the doors they had to pass. Goddamit; she'd burned precious time grabbing a collection of superstitious nonsense they could swipe from any room they rented? "I repeat, anything he can't replace?"
"It's a big deal to him," she said. "His priest or rabbi or whatever gave it to him when he turned thirteen; meant he was a man now and stuff."
Morg fumed but said nothing; now was not the time to be debating the wisdom of putting a crewmate's sentimental junk over evacuating before armed enemies arrived.
Behind him, Odrida phoned Izzy. "Deck 1," she said as they reached the elevator. "Room 117."
Morg relaxed slightly when the doors opened to an empty elevator car. "Sitrep?" he asked, stepping inside and pressing "1".
"Apparently, they're mostly packed already," Odrida said. "Izzy says they're just about ready to go."
This surprised Morg; he'd been certain they'd find Izzy waiting outside, and be forced to storm the room and lay down some coitus interruptus on their hormonally-hyperactive passengers. "Thank God for small favors."
Odrida was reserving a shuttle when they got off the elevator. Morg could tell they were in the expensive part of the hotel section; the carpet under his thin-soled shoes was deep and clean, the immaculate white walls were decorated with various impressionist prints. When they got to room 117, the door slid aside quickly and silently when Izzy opened it.
"Captain Chan, Mr. Morgan," he said, looking concerned. "I thought we had another hour to prepare. Has something gone awry?"
"You could say that," Odrida said, entering the room while Morg positioned himself in the doorway. "Call Ham; tell him to saddle up, and to keep an eye out for unidentified ships straying too close to Mitch."
Morg glanced around the spacious suite, conspicuously free of armed smugglers. Layne and Merideth were still wasted, still giggling at everything, and still morons, but they were indeed busy stuffing clothes into suitcases.
Morg stood guard in the doorway while Odrida cajoled their passengers into getting a move on. She was far and away the most "laid-back" CO he'd ever had, and he found himself questioning her command decisions more than he suspected was healthy, but he had to admit: the girl was patient. If he'd been in charge of shepherding these two exemplars of idle wealth, guns and death threats would have entered the picture very quickly.
Later than Morg would have liked, they got underway; to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Layne and Merideth had vastly more luggage than two people could possibly need, and much of it seemed to be filled with rocks. Thank God for Izzy; he wasn't much of a spacer yet, but the 6'6" Engineer's Mate made a hell of a pack animal. Layne and Merideth were even willing to drag some of the wheeled items.
Morg didn't have to carry anything, loading his small pack onto Izzy. He was free to deal with any threats that presented themselves.
But none did; either Emil Hasegawa -- Jesus, did Odrida really have to call him Tubby McAssface? -- was still licking his wounds, or simply hadn't caught up with them yet. They made it to the Checker Shuttle terminal unmolested. After Odrida rang-up Layne's credit card, they boarded the station-to-ship cab without seeing any sign of opposition.
Outside the station's artificial gravity field, the large yellow cab was in full zero-G, with windows on all sides showing the stars outside. Layne and Merideth found this, like most things, hysterical. Merideth was a particularly bizarre sight as Odrida helped her strap-in to her seat -- her long pink hair flew in every direction, making her head a neon sunburst. Her halter top, barely able to contain her oversized breasts back in the station's gravity, had given up the fight completely. His face bright red, Izzy was keeping his eyes firmly averted.
"Tuck yourself in, honey," Odrida said. "Safety regs. Can't have any unsecured items floating around."
Izzy looked relieved, but the cabby scowled from the other side of the transparent partition.
Morg and Izzy finished securing all that goddamn luggage. Morg tapped the partition and gave the cabby a thumbs-up, strapping himself into his own seat.
The lights around the door turned red; there was a dull thump as the shuttle detached itself from the station and began floating away. Morg leaned his head back, relaxing as he ignored the two idiots babbling next to him. They weren't out of danger; surely the smugglers had access to ship-to-ship weapons, even if wasting a shuttle as it left the station would have been outrageously bold even by Kane Micro standards. But that was beyond his ability to control; his part was, for the time being, done.
Morg occasionally glanced out the cab's rear window as it slowly accelerated away, the massive bulk of Kane Micro on full display. Like most wormhole stations, it was an enormous, sprawling thing, built in fits and starts as its various owners had expanded and enlarged it according to various whims. It seemed more like a living thing than something man-made, though its seemingly random and mismatched expansions gave it a decidedly tumorous appearance.
Off to the right, Morg saw the dim blue glow of the station's massive thrusters, putting out a tiny but continuous push to counteract the gravity of the distant red sun. A navy frigate, dwarfed by the enormous station, sat parked while space-suited crewmen worked on its hull, blue light and yellow sparks coming from their laser torches. A fat tanker floated in the distance, refueling a bulk freighter.
Places like this, it was easy to forget that the overwhelming majority of space was lifeless void; here, it was alive.
After about fifteen minutes or so, they were finally in visual range of Mayberry Mitch -- the place where he lived.
He'd fought it, back when he first signed on as Odrida's First Mate -- he told himself that crewing Mitch was just a temporary gig, that he'd find something else more suited to his talents before long. But after a year, he had to admit it; Mitch was home.
He wasn't sure how he felt about that.
"That an old Watchman?" the driver asked over the intercom as the ship grew steadily larger.
"Sure is," Odrida answered.
"Don't see too many of them anymore."
"Not many left," Odrida said. "Too old to make good private yachts, too small to be profitable light freighters."
"'Too small?' I've had Coast Guard guys tell me those things are a goddamn floating mansion compared the the Centurions that replaced 'em!"
"Buddy, compared to a Centurion, your cab is a floating mansion."
The driver laughed. "So if that bird of yours ain't a yacht and it ain't a freighter, then what the hell is it?"
"Home."
Mitch couldn't help but smile a bit. Odrida said the word with reverence, as though that dinky, obsolete, former Coast Guard patrol bird was the most wondrous place to live a person could possibly ask for.
Well, then. For her, maybe it was.
Mitch's gray hull was shaped like a squashed octahedral tube with fuel tanks running down the port and starboard sides, each ending at a double-engine nacelle. The ship was turning slowly as Ham pivoted her to dock with the inbound shuttle, aiming the off-center docking ring that formed the starboard side of the ship's bow like a giant cannon. Encased by transparent MetaSteel™, the bridge sat next to the docking ring. Ham was clearly visible, strapped into the co-pilot's acceleration couch. The couch was in its usual "down" position, meaning that when Mitch was under power, the couch's occupant would be lying on his back looking "up."
Even Morg had to admit the view from that transparent bridge was something special.
The cabby expertly eased his shuttle up against Mitch's port. The two vessels made contact with a soft thump. The lights surrounding the shuttle's exterior door turned green as it locked into place.
"All clear," the driver said as his passengers unbuckled themselves. "Safe trip, folks."
"Thanks," Odrida said as the cab's door, synchronized with Mitch's, cycled open.
Ham was waiting for them, floating in the airlock. A decade past most corporations' minimum retirement age, Mitch's Chief Engineer was skinny, bald, and typically had a frown on his long, wrinkled face. "Welcome back," he said.
Merideth looked at Ham and yelped. Layne laughed. "Damn, dude! You're old!"
"And you're dumb," Ham said. "Unfortunately, the both of us are just gonna get worse from here on out." He pushed his way onto the cab while Izzy and Morg unfastened the luggage.
"What are you doing?" Odrida asked as Ham secured himself to a seat.
"What's it look like? Heading to the station for some R&R!"
"We're shipping out," she said. "ASAP. I want us underway within the hour."
"Oh, come on!" Ham said. "Just delay the goddamn launch a couple of hours. I've earned this!"
"Hot LZ," Morg said, glancing at the two passengers. Thankfully, they were oblivious to the tense atmosphere in the cab.
"Care to repeat that in English?"
Morg leaned-in close. "I had to shoot a couple of people. They're probably still a little pissed."
Ham glared at him. "Then next time," he grumbled, unstrapping himself, "might I suggest you aim for the head? Tough to hold a grudge with a hollow skull. Can we at least delay long enough for me to EVA and get the new injectors in?"
"What new injectors?"
Ham closed his eyes tight as his face reddened. "Well, that's fuckin' peachy. Don't worry, when this set blows, we'll just get out and push!"
"We'll get some soon," Morg said.
"Promise not to shoot anybody at the next fuckin' port?"
Morg said nothing, and set to work unloading the cab.
"So what's our status?" Odrida asked as Morg floated through the hatch leading from Mitch's central shaft to the bridge. She was lying in the pilot's couch, her fingers dancing in the air as they manipulated controls that existed only on the inside of her SmartGoggles™.
"Our Chief Engineer is mad as hell that we're leaving with him getting neither replacement parts nor pussy." Morg strapped himself into the co-pilot's couch and flipped his own goggles to Pilot Mode, introducing a wealth of information about the ship into his field of view.
"Our Engineer's Mate," Morg continued, "is growing increasingly alarmed by the erratic and inexplicable behavior of our passengers; the latest in the very extensive list of issues we are going to 'discuss with him later' is the concept ménage à trois, as he has received an explicit invitation to participate in one. As have I. And, our passengers would like you to know, as have you. In short, they've invited every member of this crew to jump in the sack with them, save for the one guy who's actually horny enough to take them up on it."
Morg took the speaker bud off his goggles and tucked it in his ear, listening to the traffic control chatter. "As for the passengers themselves, they were, last I saw, safely strapped into the couches in their quarters. The notion that they undid those restraints to start boning the moment I left the room is idle speculation, as is my suspicion that we're transporting a bit of 'spice' after all."
Odrida sat up a bit and stared at him. "Come again?"
"Think about it; pair of recreational drug users, one of them with a fat bank account. Any chance in hell they're going to set forth on an adventure like this without a beefy little stash tucked into that mountain of luggage?"
Odrida sighed and laid back down. "Only if they were so wasted they left it back on the station."
"Tower to Mayberry Mitch," came a woman's voice over the speaker in Morg's ear.
"Mitch here, go," Odrida said.
"You are cleared for hot burn along zero-eight-five plus two-point-eight, t-minus-sixty on your mark."
"Hot burn along zero-eight-five plus two-point-eight, acknowledged. T-minus-sixty, mark."
A timer appeared in the lower right part of Morg's field of view and immediately began counting down from sixty seconds. The engine icons next to them began to glow yellow.
"Have a safe trip, Odrida."
"Take care, Jen."
Morg smiled. It seemed like Odrida was on a first-name basis with every tower crew in human-settled space.
"Attention passengers and crew," Odrida said, activating the intercom. "We will be initiating engine burn in under one minute. Please return to your seats. We will reach zero-point-two-five gees in just a few seconds, at which time you will be free to move about the ship and resume groping one another."
She shut off the intercom.
"You regret bringing those two on yet?" Morg asked.
"Are you kidding?" Odrida asked. "Five years ago, I was a waitress in a high-tech backwater whose only dream was that I might get to see somewhere else, anywhere else before I died. Now, I'm lighting the torch on my very own goddamn spaceship. And those two are going to help me keep it going just a little while longer.
"No. No regrets, Vu."
Morg smiled. "Wish we could all say that, Captain."
The engine icons turned red. Mitch shuddered softly as four engines lit fiery plumes of fusing hydrogen. An invisible hand one-quarter Morg's weight shoved him into the soft gel of the acceleration couch.
And they were traveling between the stars once again.
